THE NEW YORKER sandbar in the Loire with a family of seven girls, all of them blond, all of them charming, all of them in love with · Duncan. ("You will write to us, yes?") I DON'T know exactly when we each decided that the other wasn't worthy of this paradise. What I do remember is that it became increasingly difficult to decide which hotel we would stay at, whIch restaurant we would eat in; which road we would take. The moments multiplied when one of us would draw his breath and turn away, confront the scenery and remark, " "'VeIl, whatever you want. . . Against the sound of strained politeness in the background, I remember the sun- set at Blois flooding crimson through the sky, and the long al1ées at Chambord; in such a manner I remember two swallows skimming low over the Loire, chirruping and beating their bent pointed wings. I remember Duncan's voice at Chenonceaux-the sky was filled with domed white clouds-saying "I don't care really. . . . I suppose we ought. . ." and his voice quivered with resentment. "T e had decided to see the west of France-mostly it was my idea-be- cause there would be fewer Americans there. But actually I had another rea- son. So far as I knew, it was barren of dif- ficult places lIke Chartres. At Chartres, I'd had al1 the wrong reactions Who would have known that the thing to do with the cathedral was to go into a pâtisserie and buy a bag full of choco- late éclairs and cherr) tarts and then sit down on the grass plot in front of the entrance and stare at the towers while eatIng oneself into a chocolate comar Duncan didn't like it when I said the cathedral was beautiful; you were supposed to feel these things so deeply you couldn't express yourself, and wouldn't even want to express yourself. Duncan enjoyed Pernod. It made me sick. Duncan hated talking to people. I talked to everyone. My :French vocabu- lary was better than Duncan's. His pro- nunciation was better than mine. I be- came terribly adept at not irritating Duncan before breakfast. I couldn't see that he appreciated any of this, or that he responded with any similar aware- ness. For the fiftieth time, I thought him unfair. The moment came when I could no longer stand the sound of his voice, or his ideas. After travelling with him day and night, without a break, for fifty-three days, I felt my senses suffocating in an awareness of Duncan. We rode through the flat Vendéen landscape, with its bright-yellow marsh grasses and wheat and green meadows, its white farmhouses, and its tiny draw- , -----,.'",:' , -- .. ..'.. ' bridges over canals and streams-two college boys, sun-tanned and healthy, in T shirts and shorts, so angry with each other that we rode our bicycles ten or fif- teen feet apart. When an infrequent car passed us, I would wonder if Duncan would see it in time, but he always did. There was a moist, sticky quality in the air. The villages were far apart, and when we came to one, the houses were shuttered and unfriendly. The French were barricaded in their cool, high-ceilinged rooms, cutting into ripe pears with tiny pearl-handled knives, while we bicycled the hot and dusty " ,, . . ,...: {o '- .......... -.... .,. .-.. A " þ t. " 8' '1 \ .. --" -,." t\ ) ' " , ---- \. .... è:, ... . . ..... $I ..., '*.. ^.... "" ,..., "'!' h ! }' ; ! oW - ....- ./' '-.... 25 streets, only to emerge, on the other side of the gray church and white stucco café, back in the flat open country. The heat was unbearable. At Luçon, we turned off the main road and headed toward the sea again, to a village on the map called La Tranche, which turned out to be three or four buildings along the highway. Just beyond La Tranche, our road climbed to the top of a rIdge, and we saw that the flat, grassy country- side humped into the ridge we were on and then flowed into the Bay of Biscay, with no beach, or wall of rocks The grass of the meadows, green and glow- .? l' c.. 't.'"" , .& .... j> ", ""', --- ti-- I!T ,., ,.,." ( * t" i f: :1 t -....n. r"", ,. .,.f" f - I ... 'j · - t '1'1 , '. t ' ... "I . , I h ..""" . _-t.. <}It " ":0 } '" \,. " ' ; .: r --/ I "" ' -, . " , -::1 / . , --- ,..0 r <!I^ --" -- "T he rent here is more than I care to pay and the place is too small for me, but it's home and it suits me, somehow."